Madison County treasurer questioning county board members’ hours

EDWARDSVILLE — On the tail of a new law barring future Illinois county board members from participating in a state retirement fund, Madison County Treasurer Kurt Prenzler is questioning the amount of hours county board members worked in 2014.

An audit by the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF) internal audit department in 2014 found incomplete information on the estimated time elected officials spent on county business.

The audit was unable to determine whether elected officials had met annual hourly requirements. Participants in the retirement fund are required to work at least 600 hours.

The fund’s audit department requested that county submit an estimated time elected officials spent on employer business. In response, the county compiled a list of regular board member tasks, Madison County Administrator Joseph Parente said, and estimated board members spent 788 hours annually, or about two hours a day, on county business.

Parente said the county was later informed that the audit file had been closed.

But the county treasurer, who is running against incumbent Madison County Chairman Alan Dunstan in November’s election, said the county may have fabricated the numbers.

“It looks like the chairman’s office just ‘made it up’ to save pensions for part-time elected officials,” Prenzler stated Thursday in a news release. “There were no certification forms signed by county board members submitted to IMRF, only an attached document claiming all board members worked the exact same annual hours — 788.”

But Parente said Prenzler’s claims were beside the point.

“Mr. Prenzler claims the audit response stated each board member worked the exact same hours. This is not what the county submitted to IMRF. The county submitted a survey of the estimated county board time spent conducting the business of Madison County government. It was an estimate of the time board members regularly perform in performing their duties,” Parente stated in an email to the Telegraph.

The new law, signed by Gov. Bruce Rauner in late August, prohibits new county board members from participating in the retirement fund and requires current participating board members to submit proof of hours worked on county business.

The chairman, however, has asked all county board members, who are seated on Dec. 1, to freeze their participation in the fund altogether. Dunstan said the measure will save taxpayers money. Prenzler said the new law simply “puts teeth in the hourly requirement and makes part-time county board members prove what they work.”

The county board will consider Dunstan’s resolution at their next meeting at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 21, at the Madison County Administration Building, 157 North Main St., Edwardsville.